Rural Flatwoods, Braxton County, West Virginia, is 206 miles west of Washington, D. C.

December 29, 2004 Daytona Beach, Florida – Half a century ago in 1952, fifteen hundred and one UFO sightings were reported to the U. S. Air Force’s Project Blue Book (Page 108 of Blue Book Report). The most well known events were “flying discs” over Washington, D. C., on July 19 and July 26, 1952, that were monitored on radar.

July 19 and 26, 1952 – UFOs Over Washington, D. C.

Around midnight on July 19, 1952, radar operators at Washington National Airport noted several ‘blips’ on the radar over Washington D.C. The unidentified blips traveled at 100 to 130 mph, but then would accelerate suddenly to speeds in excess of 7,200 mph. Washington National Airport and other radar operators confirmed the radar activity with each other and with Andrews Air Force Base. A week later on Saturday, July 26, 1952, “glowing aerial objects” showed up again on radar over the Nation’s capital and The Washington Post even ran a story about one jet pilot’s encounter with a “saucer that outran” him.

Frank also became convinced after talking and sketching with adults now, who were grade school and junior high age eyewitnesses on September 12, 1952, that the so-called “Flatwoods Monster” was a large mechanical device, not biological. Frank explained that the first people to see an oval-shaped object that looked like it had red-violet-orange flames coming off of it were about a dozen boys ranging in age from ten to fourteen. According to some of the children, the oval object stopped in mid-air and then went down on a hilltop at the Fisher Farm across from the school playground where they were all playing. The children ran to the house of Kathleen May, mother to two of the boys – Edison and Freddie – and she went with them to see the mysterious object which local media and a TV program sensationalized as the “Flatwoods Monster.” But Frank Feschino did his own later interviews and sketches with Mrs. May and her grown son, Freddie, that lead him to conclude the Flatwoods event was a UFO crash and retrieval operation of great interest to the United States government – but nothing has ever been shared with the American public.

Freddie started sketching it out and I had to help him because he’s not a professional artist and then we got a working composite drawing, like a police sketch.

DID HE AGREE THAT IT MAY HAVE BEEN MORE MECHANICAL THAN BIOLOGICAL?

Oh, absolutely. That’s exactly what he told me, ‘This thing was mechanical. It was not alive.’And Kathleen May told me she could hear it sizzling, like ‘bacon frying.’ The witnesses heard a thumping noise coming from it, like a beat. It might have been an engine noise. I have no idea.

August 12, 1995, sketch by Freddie May for Frank Feschino, Jr.

This 12-foot-tall machine was hovering behind a gigantic oak tree that was approximately 75-feet-tall. That’s how it startled them. They were looking straight up toward the back hill, or mountain top, where this thing was seen to have landed. And it was not there anymore. What it had done is relocated and came down into a gully and stayed out of the way because the thing was seen by a lot of people. The thing was glowing up there.

HOW LONG DID IT TAKE FOR SOME KIND OF MILITARY OR AIR TRAFFIC TO SHOW UP?

The National Guard was in the area within a few hours.

Military Retrieval Operation At Flatwoods, West Virginia Site

I interviewed Col. Dale Leavitt (a Captain in 1952) who was the head of the West Virginia National Guard and he was called by Washington. He was called at his home in the southern area and he got together a bunch of troops and they went up to the site. He told me there were 50 to 60 guys. They came into the back area of the Fisher Farm ­ not the access road. It was a strict covert mission. They went up there and took pieces and remnants of stuff that was laying around. They took samples of the oil, some pieces of the tree where this thing was seen hovering there. He told me he had to box all this stuff up, put it in jars, put it in little boxes, and he had to ship it back to Washington.

DID HE SAY ANYTHING ABOUT THE ADDRESS TO WHICH HE SHIPPED?

No, he didn’t. He just told me he sent it off.

DID HE EVER LEARN ANYTHING ABOUT WHAT IT WAS?

He never heard anything back again. He never heard a word.

Colonel Dale Leavitt, U. S. Army, circa 1960s. Col. Leavitt was a Captain on September 12, 1952, and head of the West Virginia National Guard that was ordered by someone in Washington, D. C., to go to the Flatwoods “monster” site, box up any unusual debris and ship to a specific address (not identified by Leavitt). Photograph courtesy Mrs. Dale Leavitt for Frank Feschino, Jr.

Continued in Part 2 – 1.5 Hours Before Flatwoods Event, USAF Starfire Disappeared Over Gulf of Mexico

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